Maggi on the boil, fans stare at empty plates

NEW DELHI: Shivani Mittal grew up hearing ‘fast to cook, good to eat’ on TV. In childhood, it meant a steaming bowl of curly noodles over which she made slurping sounds while a trickle of warm soup ran down her chin and tickled her neck. When she started working, the same bowlful became her dinner staple because, after a hectic day in office, she is in no mood for heavy-duty cooking.
Times poll: Maggi at home — would you eat it?
Now, news of excessive lead and monosodium glutamate in Maggi noodles has caused a crisis in Shivani’s life.She and thousands of others like her are suddenly not sure about the ‘good to eat’ half of the old sales pitch. “I depended on Maggi for dinner most days, but now I can’t find a substitute for it,” said the 29-year-old sales representative.
The cloud over Maggi has darkened the mood even at stalls in North Campus where students practically live on instant noodles. Gone is the crowd from ‘Chopra Uncle’s Maggi’, a joint in Hudson Lane. Praveen Chopra, the owner, said demand for his masala Maggi has fallen from 150-odd plates a week to about 50. “Some of it may be because of the holidays,” he said hopefully.
Campus Corner, another joint near Kamla Nagar, has stopped selling Maggi for now. Mukesh Pandit, an assistant, said, “We stopped selling Maggi in May because it’s a question of students’ health.”
Rahul Kumar, a civil services aspirant, misses Maggi sorely because he now has to suffer hostel mess food every night. Many students have switched to Wai Wai and other Maggi rivals for the time being.
Mothers with little children face a difficult time explaining why Maggi is off their menu. Asira Ahmad, who has a five-year-old son, said she used to bribe her son out of tantrums with a plateful of Maggi. “But now, getting him to obey me, or even make him finish meals, will be difficult. How am I going to coax him?”
Vidhu, a housewife, didn’t think twice before banishing Maggi from her table. “Everyone has stopped eating Maggi in my family. Even my maid stopped buying it after her child fell ill.”
A grocer in Bengali Market said he hasn’t sold even one packet of Maggi this week. “People aren’t buying it. Many customers used to buy 2-3 family packs at the beginning of every month, but this time I will have to return the stock,” said Brij, the store manager. Pradeep Kapoor, a grocer in Gole Market, said, “I used to sell about 150 packets in a week but have not sold a single packet in the past three days.”
Maggi stalls outside offices are also deserted. “I used to make at least 20 plates of Maggi in a day but now nobody wants it,” said a seller in ITO square.
But some Maggi lovers, like Divya Gupta, a final year DU student, aren’t bothered by the reports. “I love Maggi. I used to eat at Campus Corner Maggi Point, but since they’ve stopped making it I go to Uncle Tom’s.”
Gagan Kataria, owner of ‘Tom Uncle’s Maggi’ said, “Students eat Maggi even when they know it’s contaminated. Till the time there is demand, we will make it.”